Much like Alfred Werker’s
Rebel in Town, another western noir released the same year, William Witney’s
Stranger at My Door tells the tale of a young, violent criminal who moves in with a kindhearted married couple and develops an unwelcome confidence with the wife, but Witney’s film adds an overt conversion to Christianity. For a low-budget Republic film lacking star power,
Stranger at My Door features outstanding direction, wonderful acting, and some intensely choreographed action scenes, most notably the household’s terrifying battle with a bucking bronco who terrorizes the family farm like an equine Godzilla in an extended scene that gets the blood pumping. It’s all an unabashed allegory: criminal guest Clay Anderson (Skip Homeier) needs taming just as the dangerous bronco (named Lucifer!) needs taming by the preacher (Macdonald Carey) who’s in the process of building a church and whose wife (Patricia Medina) desires to kill the bronco because it symbolizes temptation from Clay’s presence in her home. (“I love my husband.” He replies: “Do you? How do you know, if you’ve never tried anything different?”) By the way, the family dog, named Chris (as in Christian?), attempts to vanquish Lucifer too. Heavy-handed? Sure. But Witney still makes the whole thing fascinating. Even if the Christian ethic wins over the moral ambiguity expected in noir, the cinematography and production design far outshine the budget: for example, an outdoor fire reflecting through the boy’s bedroom window at night is utterly beautiful if all too brief.
